


The Subtle Art and Science of Forgetting

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 20:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16961310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: Human brains are limited. To make room for new information, old information needs to be deleted. Removing his own memories was easy for Stephen, once he had decided they were unnecessary. No spells required.But the last act of remembering was a ritual. One final sweep over the old slate, before wiping it clean.





	The Subtle Art and Science of Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary aside, this really is fluff, I swear.
> 
> I am getting rather fond of Thomas - the barista I'd invented for my previous ficlet, [Sanctum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16908690). I'm using him again here. I may use him again in future. (In Simba's evil uncle's singing voice: Be prepaaaared.)
> 
> Dr. Abel Saint-Just is also nowhere in canon.
> 
> PS: not a healthcare worker, so will likely get all the medical stuff wrong.
> 
> PPS: there's a joke where I'm from, where when someone asks "How strong do you want your coffee?" it is considered an appropriate response to say "Strong enough to fight for me." I just remembered that joke while writing.
> 
> As always, thanks to my lovely beta reader, [Clair](https://www.instagram.com/claircolors/) <3

> "Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." - Sherlock Holmes in _A Study in Scarlet_ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  
  
  
One day, Stephen woke up and decided he no longer needed to know how to deal with intracranial hemorrhage.

But before completely deleting the memory from his head, he looked back at a specific instance involving the procedure...

December 12th, 2003. His internship year. Something had gone wrong. The attending neurosurgeon was Dr. Abel Saint-Just, who had frozen on the spot, scalpel in hand.

Stephen had known from the start, considering Saint-Just's sloppy surgical planning, that hemorrhage was a possibility...but now it was right in front of him.

He had been impatiently standing by, as interns were required to do, but when Saint-Just's fuck-up became evident, standing by was no longer an option.

 _"Get out of the way and let me take over,"_ Stephen yelled. Saint-Just should have heard him, but he didn't move - simply stared down at the bleeding mass of flesh on the table.

Stephen elbowed the unresponsive Saint-Just to one side, snatched the scalpel from the older doctor's hands, and went to work.

After the other doctors and nurses in attendance had shaken off the initial shock (rather quickly, in their defense), they wisely let Stephen take the lead.

It was all textbook and done in record time. All one needed was a clear recollection of emergency protocol.

And extremely steady hands.

He earned a Rolling Stone interview and a number of media appearances for that would-have-been malpractice suit, and the very public drama that ensued. Saint-Just never spoke to him again, or called on him for surgeries, despite the shortage of interns and the hospital mandating him to do so, but it was a snub that Stephen could live with.

As Stephen reviewed the incident in his head, much like someone watching an old video, he zoomed in on his younger, more capable hands as they performed the lifesaving procedure.

He watched it over and over.

Until he was tired of it.

Without the need to make the tiniest physical gesture, he erased that memory, and all memories related to it, from his own brain.

It was no longer likely that Stephen would remember Saint-Just if they met again on the street...he had been part of the "snap," as Stephen had come to humorously call it - the purging of non-essential memories.

And, of course, it meant he could no longer perform an emergency procedure on an intracranial bleed. He no longer had the hands to do it with, anyway.

Having accomplished this, it was time for Stephen to attend to more important matters...

Namely, his coffee date.

***

"Morning, Doctor Strange," the young barista with the sincerest smile Stephen had ever seen on a human teenager greeted. "The usual?"

"You know it, Thomas," he answered, pulling out his wallet. "No need to rush today. I'm meeting a friend here and he's not known for being a morning person."

"Oh, cool! How's your friend like his coffee? Just so I can set it up, you know..."

Stephen squinted as he searched his memories. "Dark roast double espresso, I believe. Nothing fancy. It's just important that it's strong."

"How strong?"

"About as strong as my friend is," Stephen answered with a smirk. "Strong enough to save the world."

Thomas chuckled. "Avengers strong, then? Got it."

What a funny analogy, Stephen noted, and an apt one. He was certain Thomas didn't know that he helped out the Avengers from time to time - or that he specialized in the mystic arts, for that matter - but it sure was an amusing coincidence.

"Sounds like this one's special," Thomas said with a wink. "Leave it to me, doc."

Stephen smiled in silent appreciation, as he drew out the bills needed to pay for his own coffee.

"Speaking of someone special, doc, I was wondering..." Thomas shyly scratched the back of his head. "...did you happen to notice a girl here yesterday? Long legs, redhead...that's all I remember."

"I think so," Stephen readily answered. "Blue eyeshadow, pink lipstick, green skirt stopping just above the knees, black boots, white long-sleeved blouse, light blue backpack with a Radiohead patch, silver bracelet?" He pointed to a chair near the counter. "And sitting over there."

Thomas whistled, genuinely impressed. It wasn't the first time Stephen had shown off like that, but he still managed to get blown away every time. "How do you do that??"

Stephen shrugged. "It's all up there in storage...I just kind of pull it out."

"I mean, all that stuff? You just have them lying around in your - you call it 'storage'??"

"I've got a photographic memory." He tapped a finger against his temple. "Saw me through med school."

Thomas laughed. "Man...must be nice. Not to forget anything, I mean..."

"I'm actually very forgetful, Thomas," Stephen gently corrected. "Oh, and her name's Jen. Unless she was wearing someone else's bracelet, with someone else's name on it. If you want a conversation starter the next time she's around, try asking her about the book she was reading while she was here. _The Time Traveler's Wife,_ I believe."

As Thomas stared at him slack-jawed, Stephen moved off to his favorite (and thankfully unoccupied) seat to wait for his drink.

***

Stephen contemplated the matter more as he sipped his coffee and waited.

A "photographic memory" was the simplest explanation he could give others...and Stephen was rather good at simplifying complex ideas. He would have been a decent teacher, he knew - if he had not been too proud to take a teaching post.

But that term didn't accurately describe this particular talent. He didn't simply have the ability to retain vast amounts of information, "trivia" though some people may choose to call some of it - he also had exceptional control over his own mind.

Human brains are limited. To make room for new information, old information needs to be deleted. Removing his own memories was easy for Stephen, once he had decided they were unnecessary. No spells required.

But the last act of remembering was a ritual. One final sweep over the old slate, before wiping it clean.

He couldn't remember which memories he had discarded, of course, but he could see back in time, into his own head, if he saw a real need to do it. So far, there had never been such a need. Memories that were erased, had _needed_ to be erased.

After all, did he need to remember all the domestic and international accolades he received as a surgeon, in order to fight interdimensional evils? No, he didn't.

Would knowing how to perform a rhizotomy affect his ability to cast protective charms? No, it would not.

Past flings, old griefs and grudges - those were some of the first things he had learned to forget - in Kamar-Taj, as he studied with the Ancient One. _Let go of things that are no longer important to your journey_ , he was tasked - and often, "letting go" meant forgetting them altogether. He needed to make room for all the new things he was learning.

But he must have played certain memories over in his head, at least once, before deciding to throw them out. He might have even felt sad. Even if he couldn't remember now.

For Stephen, the act of forgetting was a humbling, sobering one. It was also the subtle art and science of saying goodbye.

***

"You won't believe the traffic over at 7th," was Tony's grumpy greeting for seemingly no one in particular, as he was entering the cafe. "I swear, I almost called a suit and flew out of there. Just any suit. Could be Rhodey's. Didn't care."

The cafe was, incidentally, empty, so there were not a lot of people to gawk at the newcomer. There was just Thomas.

And boy, did Thomas gawk.

"It's...it's you! You're here!" He pointed to Stephen. "For him?"

Tony looked at the teenager. Then at Stephen. Then back at the teenager again.

"Yeah." Tony removed his shades and slid it into the pocket of his sport coat. There were light bags under his eyes - another all-nighter at the workshop, apparently. "It's me. I'm here. For him. Congratulations, kid, that's three out of three on the nose."

Thomas was still gawking. "I...wow. Tony Stark. In my coffee shop!"

"You got a Stephen Strange in here, too!" Tony helpfully supplied, gesturing to the seated man. "Just in case you didn't notice."

Stephen smiled. He wasn't a celebrity. To Thomas, he was just a friendly neighborhood face: the quiet, perpetually busy doctor who lived by himself in a big house a few blocks down from the cafe, and often took his "usual" to go.

Tony Stark, on the other hand, was virtual royalty, a unicorn sighting. And the quiet doctor from the big house had to get used to people gawking, whenever they hung out.

"Uh...say, kid, I need something with teeth. Any chance you can fix me up a --"

"I got it, Mr. Stark." Thomas seemed to snap to attention. "Dark roast double espresso, right? Just as the doctor ordered."

Tony blinked. He addressed Stephen: "You remembered."

"Of course," Stephen answered.

"And...we had coffee just that one other time, right?"

"Yes."

Tony approached him and leaned over his chair, bringing their faces close together.

"It seems we're now on our _second_ coffee date," he said to Stephen in a low whisper. "Is it too soon to start kissing to say hello?"

Stephen grunted.

"This is technically our twelfth date. We've done a lot more than kiss." He pulled Tony down gently by the front of his coat. "If you ask me, Mr. Stark, it's not too soon at all."

Poor Thomas was busy, hyper-focused on his espresso machine and making special coffee for his special guest.

So, alas, he missed his chance to see Tony Stark plant a long, deep kiss on the lips of a friendly neighborhood doctor in his coffee shop.

" _Twelfth_ date? Really?" Tony seemed genuinely surprised. He took his seat opposite Stephen.

"Yup. If you'll count that time you went with me into the dream dimension to drive back an entity that was threatening to plague the Earth with nightmares. If not, then eleventh."

"Well, it's still just our second _coffee_ date, Dr. Strange." Tony smirked. "I don't want you to think we're moving too fast."

"We boned on our first official date, Mr. Stark. Third of October, 2019," Stephen explained, in the most genteel tone he could manage. "We're way past 'moving too fast,' wouldn't you say?"

Tony laughed suddenly. It made Thomas nearly jump out of his skin.

"God, so this is how it feels like to date a jerk who never forgets a thing." Tony loudly sighed. "Just, promise to go easy on me if I forget anniversaries or birthdates or something, okay?"

Stephen smiled at him fondly.

"Don't worry about that, Tony. I'll remember for the both of us."

He wasn't sure why, but he found himself committing this moment to memory: Tony seated in front of him, laughing, deep wrinkles and light bags around his eyes, but relaxed and contented and looking at him with unabashed admiration.

_I hope I never have to forget you._


End file.
